Week 16: Avocados and Fun with Glucose Tests

Week 16...

Want to be admitted into the cloaked-behind-the-scenes-secret-handshake world of pregnant women?  Like any other worthwhile secret society, there is a ritual, a signature drink, and a little discomfort.    What is this test?  The show of bravery?  The indoctrination to the secret society? The ritual that binds pregnant women together?  Later on down the line, I am sure it will become something more more banal, like comparing the quality of child safety seats, or poop.  (I'm in denial of something called childbirth? Maybe?)  As of week sixteen though?  The great indoctrination is definitively the "Oral Glucose Tolerance Test."  And I get to take it twice, once now, and once at around 28 weeks.

The ritual:  Don't eat for twelve hours.  Wake up early, and drive to the doctor's office, or the hospital, a bit sleep deprived, caffeine-less, and settle in for a three to four hour session.

The signature drink:  Imagine the sweetest, thickest, orange Popsicle from your childhood-- a combination of maybe an Otter-pop with a concentrated shot of Fanta or Crush thrown in for good measure.  Get thirty of them, and melt them down into one glass.  Drink it fast--the entire saccharine solution in thirty seconds (they do give you five minutes to take the drink, but I'm trying to create some dramatic effect here...).  If you puke, you have to start over.

The discomfort: For three hours, roll up your sleeve, get stuck with needles and give blood every hour.

This is the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test, given to every pregnant women.  Some women, like myself, get to take the test more than once to screen them for gestational diabetes.  Doesn't it have all of the trappings of a great coming of age ceremony... or hazing at a frat party?

CNP, 2014

After I finished my test, I went out to my car, ate two peaches and two tiger milk bars, and then drove to work.  I got a call about an hour later from the hospital that warned me from any driving, as my sugar levels were so low they thought I might pass out.  Fun times.  I do feel a sense of accomplishment.  No gestational diabetes.  But a major milestone passed.  I am in the secret society.

CNP, 2014

The little bambino this week is just the size of an avocado.  I think the most amazing trait is that at this age (with their ears actually finally in place next week), they can actually hear and recognize music, voices, and even individual songs!  I'm not sure how exactly I want to take advantage of this.  I mean, my grandmother read the New York Times to her children before they were born.  I think I listened to Mozart.  While I like the idea of prepping our son or daughter for a dignified and cultured arrival on the planet, I am considering that they might nap better later if I blast some Metallica to them now...

Until next week,
Cat


A note: due to some recent events, I have a great deal more time on my hands than I did before, as you will discover in week 29.  I hope to accelerate the blog a little to catch you up on recent occurrences, but we will see what I am able to accomplish.  Cliff notes: I am well, bambino is well, but life can throw a curve ball.  I'll leave it at that for now.

Week 15: Navel Oranges and Flossing

Week 15...

CNP, 2014

The little bambino is the size of a naval orange this week, and I am having a love affair with flossing and brushing my teeth, but what really has captivated my attention is this central question:
"Why don't fish have ears?"

Let me explain.  Over the last several weeks of grocery aisle illustrations, I've written about the eyes or the ears 'migrating' into place.  I didn't really give it much thought.  I mean, right now the head of our child takes up most of its body size, and let's be honest--it has a lot of improvements to make until it doesn't look like an alien.  For example:

Even though it has fingerprints, its intestines were outside of its body just two weeks ago.  ALL of its intestines.  Swimming lazily in amniotic fluid.  

It has a cute downy coat of hair.  And transparent skin.  These seem rather adorable traits to me, but if my first view of this little bambino is covered in peach fuzz-invisible skin, it'll give me some pause. 

My partner doesn't like me referring to our child as "it."  The bambino, he/she... it does have a sex right now (last week it either started growing a prostrate or ovarian follicles), but we won't know for another five weeks until you can see 'parts' on an ultrasound.  Not knowing the sex (and finding it difficult to juggle he/she pronouns like lots of baby books do) does give the bambino an essence of other worldliness.  (I will TRY the he/she juggling... I swear.)

Just fifteen weeks ago he was a single cell.  Enough said.

As of this week, her bones are beginning to ossify.  This might not sound very glamorous, but up to this point I've been carrying elasti-girl in my womb, and x-rays of her would show no bones at all. 

So, so what if the bambino has ears, but they were on its neck.  It didn't seem like any herculean effort to imagine that they would migrate as well, given all of the other information, right?

Well, here is why I am so captivated.  Ears, it turns out, are modified gill structures.  In early embryonic stages, we have gill slits on our necks that later develop into our Eustachian tubes, middle ear, tonsils, parathyroid, and thymus.  Which means... that fish don't have ears, and they can't get tonsillitis... because they don't have either... they have gills instead.  And our little bambino's ears have been migrating from his neck to (hopefully) the proper place on either side of his head as his body has repurposed some structures (gills) in favor of others.

Humans are so cool.

(Note to self: does this mean that Waterworld is a complete fantasy, as Kevin Costner had ears and gills?  Poo.)

Speaking of movies, one of my favorite movies growing up was Dirty Dancing, and I know an embarrassing number of quotes from it.  There is one scene in which Baby shows up to a late night hotel party, and admits that she was there in attendance only because she "carried a watermelon."

Week 15, and my uterus this week is, tah dah! the size of a small mellon.  Nobody's gonna put baby in the corner, but I can at least get some humor from my growing size.

...and desire to brush my teeth at least five times a day.  I have always been obsessed with a clean mouth, but with the 50% increased red blood cell production, increased vascularization to the gums (think pregnancy glow), and decreased immune system, I do love a good tooth brushing now especially.  I might be a bit overly enthuiastic.

CNP, 2014

Until next week,
Cat

Week 14: Is she? or just too many bananas...

Week 14...

Welcome to the second trimester!  This marks the end of hiding, the end of morning sickness (hopefully), and the beginning of great growth and development.

I was thinking this week about my adjectives for "huge," and I realized that for the most part I don't actually look pregnant... ...as long as I am able to enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning.  Some mornings, coffee tastes terrible, and if I go three or four days without caffeine, I (how do I put this delicately?) look very pregnant as a result.

CNP, 2014

I got a little excited this week as well about the size of the bambino.  For the first time, most pregnancy books weren't using produce aisle metaphors.  It is the size of an iPhone, or half of a banana, and can move its facial muscles, pee and do all sorts of other actions that no doubt I'll find adorable in six to seven months.

But for now?  Still produce aisle, and it still wants me to snack.

CNP, 2014

Until next week,
Cat

Week 13: Peaches and One Third

Week 13...

One third down... two thirds (give or take, what, a month?) left to go.  I'm coming to terms with the fact that I've got a little bambino inside of me that has vocal cords, teeth, and fingerprints, abhors the smell of smoked meat, chicken, or coffee, and is enamored by snacking.

I know logically where all of this is going to go... staving off morning sickness, seeing my friends around me who are pregnant get bigger, and knowing that what is now the size of a peach will eventually weigh in around seven pounds.  And then, then I went to a bar-b-q this weekend, and sat with a friend who is about two weeks away from birth.  She is a tiny, athletic woman, and her pregnancy dominates her body.  In an hour sitting with her under the apple trees in the back yard, here are an assortment of comments:

"You look enormous!!"
"You are huge!  Weren't you due last week?"
"She (the baby) is really taking over your whole body!"
"Are you able to move around much?"

I know you aren't supposed to use vocabulary like "celestial, enormous, continental, colossal, elephantine" or other synonyms for "huge" when describing pregnant women.  And I was appalled by how frequently people felt free to discuss my friend's weight.  BUT, I also was almost compelled to discuss her size and I wanted to talk about my own mass in a way I have never cared about.  So, in preparation for the future, and as a helpful tool for those who may need to restrict their verbal diarrhea about weight, I'm offering up this "Non-Huge Thesaurus."  

CNP, 2014

In the world of the bambino, it is still making amazing advances in growth and development.  If it is a girl, it already has all of its eggs for later in life.  It has a coat of hair, and I think the most amazing aspect of my week was when my doctor brought my partner and me in for a quick ultrasound and we could see the hemispheres of the brain, legs, and frontal view.

CNP, 2014.

And now for the 'real' world.  I've told my work that I'm pregnant!  And the rest of the world awaits.

Until next week,
Cat

Week 12: Plums and Hot Dogs

Week 12...

Today, I drank coffee, snuck some brie, and dyed my hair.  Last night I was at a music festival in Telluride, and went out on the town at 11:30pm to hunt down the infamous “Diggity Dog” hot dog cart that graces the main street into the wee hours.  I ate possibly the most delicious hot dog I have ever had. 

CNP, 2014.

Let’s summarize the pregnancy do's and don’ts that I violated in 24 hours:

NO SOFT CHEESE!

NO HOT DOGS!

DON’T DYE YOUR HAIR!

NO CAFFEINE!

(wait, you were at a music festival?!?!) 

I don’t think I’m the The World’s Worst Pregnant Woman, but feel sometimes like I am rebelling against the bambino growing inside of me, or more so the rules that have been set for How to Be the Perfect Pregnant Woman, especially in the United States.  I think juggling all of the advice there is out there can get to anyone.  I'm just thankful right now that I don't look pregnant, so I can eat my frankfurter without getting pregnancy police stares.  

As for you little Bambino, considering that I might have thrown you a little loop with dye chemicals, processed meat, caffeine, and listeria bacteria in a 24 hour period,  I should check in with you to see how your world is progressing:

CNP, 2014.

You have fingernails.  This in itself absolutely astounds me.  I promise to only eat hotdogs in extreme circumstances.  Once a month.  Once a week.

Until next week,
Cat

Week 11: Drooling and Limes

Week 11: 

Most pregnancy books devote a line or two, at most, to one disturbing change I have come to recognize in my body this week.  "You may find you are producing excessive bodily fluids."  If by excessive, they mean that you wake up in the middle of the night with a pool on your pillow the size of the Dead Sea, then I get it.  Unfortunately, the adjective "excessive" doesn't really illustrate the incredible amount of drool I seem to be able to produce in seconds.

Think Zombie excessive.

CNP, 2014

Under normal circumstances, our bodies produce 1 1/2 quarts of saliva a day (which seems like a ridiculously large quantity already, doesn't it?).  During pregnancy, women experience ptyalism or sialorrhea, especially if they already have bouts of severe morning sickness.  Add the increased drooling to the nosebleeds some pregnant women get, and you have all the signs of a zombie apocalypse.

But even with all of these quirky changes, the fetus is still progressing through all of its development: it has an ENORMOUS head, but its skin is transparent and there isn't eye pigment yet.  It moves a lot (I could see it on the ultrasound), but its bones are just beginning to harden--both this and increased size will allow you to feel the bambino soon.

CNP, 2014

Until next week,
Cat

Week 10: 180bpm and Prunes

Week 10…

Three songs have defined my week:

Karma Chameleon: Boy George

Red Red Wine: UB40
I’m So Excited: The Pointer Sisters


What do they have in common?  They are all at approximately 180 beats per minute, the pace that the little bambino's heart is hammering away at.  These three songs kind of sum up my feelings about pregnancy right now too:

Karma Chameleon: there is some sort of odd music video going on in my body right now that I have absolutely no control over that makes me feel like I am seasick on a house-boat party I cannot drink at. (If you have no idea what I am talking about, you should watch the MTV video.  No, you really shouldn't, as it will maim your eyes and infest your ears with a 1980's virus for the next few days.)

I warned you. 

Red Red Wine: UB40 (Neil Diamond wrote it, but UB40's version is 182 bpm).  Not to harp on the whole drinking thing, but Red-Red-Wine is NOT making me feel so fine.  However, replace "red-red-wine" with "bambino" and you get the gist of why this song is so appropriate for me right now.
Finally, "I'm So Excited," by the Pointer Sisters.  I am so very excited.  So.  Excited.  

CNP, 2014.

I find it a little ironic that I am making friends with eating prunes this week myself.  Evidently, my body's increased levels of progesterone relax all of the smooth muscles in my system, including those in the digestive track.  Food is moving very. slowly. through my body.  Cliff notes?  I'm eating a lot of fiber, fruit, and testing out various theories that will help me to, well, go.  

Somewhere along the way, I discovered that prunes are absolutely delicious.  They might get a bad repletion as a geriatric throw-back, but especially once you discover them in their adorable-little-single-packaged-plump-goodness?  It is hard to exert self control.  I'd like to encourage you to try them for yourself, but you might want read "a beginner's guide to prune consumption" beforehand, so you don't make the same mistakes that I have.

CNP, 2014.

In the meantime, you'll find me making friends with prunes, both the little prune sized bambino in my womb, hammering away to Boy George, and literal ones.

Until next week, 
Cat